The capital town center has been nerfed several times through past patches, range reduced from 8 to 6, garrison slots reduced from 20 to 15, attack speed taken from 1.12 to 1.88.
The town center being a defensive position does nothing to protect any resources other than what is immediately next to it, you can starve the enemy by depriving them of map resources. Archers can still stand outside of its range and kill things within. Rams can also be used to assault the base under its protection.
The secondary town center just got a buff because the balance was tending towards the opposite in the overall meta, feudal 1tc aggression or fc dominating the ladder.
This also isn’t an issue listed by vortix, which is the subject of this thread.
They could make it 4.0 and it would still be strong.
In aoe3(de) it also takes several seconds for a shot.
If you run with infantry balls under the tc there, it doesn’t take the infantry mass down even NEARLY as quickly.
Idk why aoe4 devs thought it’s a good idea to make the tc an mg42.
Honestly I don’t have a problem with garrison slots.
Imo, the tc could also garrison infinite units, also the noncapital ones.
But take the dps (through attackspeed) down drastically (!)
They still have waaaaay too much dps vs light units.
Again, aoe3 (2005) did that beautifully.
Relic should have learned from that but oh well…
I apologize, I took the bait on that one. I wish you focused more on my last statement, this is not the topic of the thread. It would be more reasonable if we had this discussion in your linked thread rather than take this one off the rails.
Vortix talks about the game being more defensive as a result of keeps, towers and stonewalls. His issue is with the game turning into one player waiting in their base for the opponent to attack. Town centers seem to be minor to that, so minor he never mentions them once, so he’s talking about the overall strategy of playing it safe to gain an advantage. (It’s also notable, because that shows that he sees the towncenter as incapable of defending itself, counter to you own argument) This is a counter to his standard playstyle of aggression, it makes sense he takes issue with that if you know his history.
ig we’re finally seeing what happens when pro player feedback is all thats heard for over a year and the developer lacks the pace expected for support, then it takes forever to fix most basic things, player count plummets, pros don’t make enough money, they search for next golden goose, nothing to add really
eventually beasty will bail as well, its not a matter of if, but when, its just how the cycle goes, gotta ensure your survival
Discussing the topics the pro mentioned is fair game and on topic. The OP merely mentions
" the pro left and here are the reasons, and here are my opinions that agree with the pros reasons."
So far we’re all adding/debating how much we agree or disagree with the pro’s reasons.
And the capital towncenter’s power level absolutely has an impact on the pros opinion about how defensive BOOM playstyle is the best way to play the game.
My opinion was to pull more resources away from the capital to force ppl out onto the map sooner. But one could further nerf the capital alternatively? I’m semi against it bc i like defensive Boom to remain a viable playstyle, JUST NOT the defacto playstyle.
Beasty already talked about the fact that he may leave aoe4 more sooner than later a while ago.
Obviously, as you said, if the playerbase is shriking, price pools are falling, viewers on stream are descreasing… He eventually HAS to go search for a new game, as he lives off streaming and playing tournaments.
It is just incredibly sad what Microsoft and Relic have done to aoe4.
It had massive potential but they just won’t invest into the game and won’t communicate any milestones/roadmaps.
FloosWorld, among others, has consistently pointed out that that’s not how the feedback everybody thinks works, actually works.
At the end of the day y’all are guessing based on what parts of the playerbase you think are getting attention. It pits players against each other, and it imo isn’t helpful.
If beasty leaves the game will die and/or was already dead.
But to vortix’s point, viewers want ACTION, they want WOW factors. 15min base building get boring after you’ve seen it 300 times, especially done the “one way” each time…
“Show me something new and viable, or show me something extremely hard to pull off (WOWzer), or show me a constant tuck of war.”
Currently the game has very little of these, little alone ANY of these EARLY in th gameplay.
correct, i’m guessing as WE refuses to communicate in any capacity, dare i say mojang, minecraft devs, do a vastly better job at that, and they had fair few fuckups themselves
Because the devs/Microsoft won’t ever communicate ANYTHING.
They completely leave the playerbase in the dark, which only means one thing.
Nothing good is yet to come.
also important to point out, mojang stockholm is very responsive and does address feedback regularly (the devs of java edition), its mojang redmond (bedrock devs) (same redmond WE is at) that has non existent
communication (in fact, all redmond based studios are horrible at communication, it can’t be a coincedence)
i just can’t help but view redmond as microsoft’s echo chamber
The professional scene being empty as a result of current pros leaving doesn’t mean the game is dead. It’s a transition in state, maybe even total number of players drops as a result of the loss of attention, but it doesn’t mean the game is dead.
‘Dead game’ is a huge exaggeration any time its used by someone. RTS as a genre has had very few players for well over a decade. It’s something that’s used to wish death upon the game more than raise any kind of awareness. Kind of a boy who cried wolf situation, using it so often causes the discussion to lose nuance and a general numbness forms.
I don’t think that pro players really inform the general player in how they should feel about the game either, as you can see from these comments on a Beastyqt video:
@joshsmith3893
I don’t actually care. I get that the “pro scene” brings in views/money but as somebody who doesn’t really care about esports/tournaments, I don’t really care if they quit. I’m a high gold to mid plat player. I think modern gamers like to obsess over the top players and steamcharts numbers for nearly every game these days. Nothing is “valuable” or “worth playing” if the top 0.5% are not happy. Nobody is “good” or “decent” at the game unless they’re a top player, even if you’re in the top 10-15%, it’s still not good enough anymore. It is a strange phenomenon.
Gaming community trends
@nickf950
This is part of a larger trend in the gaming community where people are more interested in player numbers and discussing “how well the game is doing” as opposed to just playing and discussing the game itself.
Taking breaks prevents burnout
@Kameeho
Imagine, having a life that dosn’t revolve around AoE4.
I personally stopped playing AoE4 since December last year, and had a break, and recently picked it up again now. Why did I stop? Simple. Not only because IRL. But also wanted to play other things, such as Man of War2, some COH3, Manor Lords, and other non-rts games. And I haven’t done this, and only stuck to AOE4, I would eventually grow tired and burned out of AOE4.
I really, really love AOE as a game franchise, and I do not want to tire from it. Taking a break from what you love sometimes is what you need to rekindle that passion.
I am a married man with 2kids. I love my wife to bits. But sometimes. Staying around my wife non-stop without a break will actually do more harm than good. Having a break actually keeps our relationship healthy.
There is a saying: “you only realise what you’ve lost when it’s gone.”
Edit: Content creators for AoE IV have been responding to the pro players leaving the scene, it’s worth the 40 minutes to hear farm man official out. He took a good amount of time to talk about issues relevant to the discussion at hand:
I do think that communication could be improved. We are not given much in terms of expectation for the games future. We know at best that the next patch will be in the last half of this month, and that we will have things to look forward to in Spring 2025. Gamescom is also happening in late August, so we know we’ll get information from that, but it will likely be a small nugget of what people actually want.
I have personal experience with the professional culture of Redmond and the PNW at large. NDAs are very common here, and discussing projects with the public without PA approval kills careers. If you want to blame anything for that, blame American work culture. Nothing goes out without approval up the whole chain. This does not mean that developers do not care or are not aware of the issues… it does mean that they are restrained by the process.
Makes me actually wonder how many of AoE 4’s pros (the ones that joined the franchise with that title) will branch out to AoM.
Yup.
From my understanding, apart from AoE 4’s council, there’s also a “council” for AoE 2 that consists of FE staff and AoE 2’s pros and their suggestions are mostly taken into consideration which usually also brings good results. So it’s less about pro players giving input but rather the way the input is processed.
Yeah I think so as well. I see Beasty as AoE 4’s Viper in terms of reach.
We have lost the playerboost from last dlc already.
33% of the playerpool has disappeared in the last months.
So even the casual players won’t be attracted by just new civs anymore.
The Devs HAVE to address the CORE ISSUES of the game, including the hackers ASAP or we’ll go down to 7/6/5/4 K players very soon…
They have to fix the big problems of the game and make the meta less stagnated into turtle/boom.
HRE fast IMP has to be tackled, TC dps/attackspeed has to be massively decreased (1.88s/shot in aoe4 vs 3s/shot in aoe3).
Age2 light units should be able to make a difference in a siege and not just get MG42d down like the soldiders in D-Day.
Yes, the tc should offer a defensive advantage, but damage-wise, a MILD one only.
Being able to garrison villagers, military units AND have insane dps vs light units is just too much…
Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if player-numbers will got a significant hit again in August, as stormgate got early-released and will soon get its full release.
Some time later AOM:R will get released.
Beasty said, he’ll most likely try and compete in the upcoming aom:r tournament.
Absolutely not good news for aoe4…
Well, Vortix was upset when they added 8 garrisoned villagers, he probably got the impression that they were going to go in the wrong direction again. What Vortix said was that “META forces you to stay and wait.”
As an example, in the semi-final there were 3TCs, which are defensive structures.
I think it’s because of the RTS that are now on the market. COH3 is at its best balance, AOM, Stormgate, Tempest Rising or Mano Lord etc. Competition only benefits the players.
I 100% agree.
The question is though, will this be to the worse of aoe4, as players will migrate to more polished and better supported competitors or will the Devs/Microsoft wake up and finally support aoe4 and make it a full release instead of aoe2.2 Beta version?
I very much hope for the last, but I bet on the first…
Well said there!
Players want those incredible moments in the game.
Just look at Mango shots. This is the only wow in AOE4. Why? Because its projectiles are not homing and it needs good timing and predicting unit movements. Thats how good mangonel shots create a WOW time. The same goes for AOE1 and 2’s ranged projectiles. Any pro player can face 9 archers with only 5 archers and beat with better micro and managing macro parts of the game at the same time. This creates the gap between casuals and the pros.
